1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method of and a system for taking an image such as a digital camera, and a computer program for causing a computer to execute the method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, in an image-taking by a digital camera, there have been carried out to detect an objective body such as the face from an image obtained by the image-taking and to change the conditions of the image processing to be carried out on the image and/or to change the image-taking conditions during the image-taking according to result of the detection. For example, it has been proposed a technic in which, when an area of a single object is larger than a predetermined value, the white balance is adjusted according to the brightness of the object. (See, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 10 (1998)-136390) Further, it has been proposed a technic in which whether the strobe light is to be lit is determined on the basis of information on the brightness of the object and the instruction of the photographer on whether the strobe light is to be lit, whereby the information representing result of the determination and the information on the instruction of the photographer are stored together with the image obtained by the image-taking (photographing). (See, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2003-143524.) Further, in a digital camera where the photographing mode is variously settable upon photographing and information on the actually set photographing mode is stored with the obtained image attached thereto, it has been proposed a technic in which on an image on which the portrait mode has been set, whether the portrait mode has been set with the photographer's intention is determined and when this question is admitted, the gradation processing is not carried out, while when this question is denied, the gradation processing is carried out. (See, U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 20050046724.)
On the other hand, in the digital camera, when a predetermined objective body such as a face is detected from a through image or a pre-image, the photographing condition upon a running photographing and the image-processing condition upon an image processing are set on the basis of the detected objective body. In this case, in order to set the photographing condition, functions such as an AE processing for setting the exposure, an AF processing for detecting the focusing position, an AWB for automatically adjusting the white balance and a processing to determine whether the strobe light is to be turned on or off are employed. Further, in order to set the image-processing condition, functions such as the gradation processing for correcting the gradation are employed.
In the digital camera, the full-auto mode and the manual mode can be set as the photographing mode. When photographing is carried out with the manual mode set, it is often that the photographer wishes to leave the atmosphere during photographing to the image. Especially, when the photographing is carried out including a predetermined object such as the face, brightness or gradation is sometimes set on the face to represent the photographer's intention. However, if all the afore-said plurality of functions are employed in setting the photographing conditions and the image-processing conditions, an image of the quality intended by the photographer cannot be sometimes obtained. Especially, in the techniques disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication Nos. 10(1998)-136390 and 2003-143524, and U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 20050046724, since functions of adjustment of the white balance, emission of the strobe light and the like are automatically used, it is impossible to obtain an image of the quality intended by the photographer.